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Show : amerIcFgreat i peacejvation New York April 10 President Wilson, Wil-son, as guest of The Associated Press at the annual luncheon Riven at the Waldorf Astoria said in the course of his speech nn Real Neutrality" that 4 America Is free from the dlfftculttea facing the p;uropean countries and adrise calm judgment. j He said "Did you ever reflect upon how almost al-most all other nations almost every other nation, has through long centuries cen-turies been headed In one direction? That is not true of the United Slates The United States has no racial mo- ; mentum. It has no history back of it which makes It run all its energies and all its ambitions in one particular direction! and America is particular- . ly free in this, that she has no hampering hamp-ering ambitions as a world power. If we have been obliged by circumstances circum-stances in the past, to take territory which we otherwise would not have thought of taking 1 believe I am right in saying that we have considered consid-ered it our duty to administer that territory, not for ourseUes but for the people living in it, and to put this burden upon our conscience uot I to think of these things as not ours j for our use, but to regard ourselves as trustees of the great business for those to whom it does really belong, trustees ready to hand over the trust at any time when the business seems to make that possible and feasible. That is what 1 mean by saying we fcave no hampering ambitions We do not want anything that does not belong to us Isn't a nation in that position free to serve other nations and isn't a nation like that ready to form some part of the assessing opinion opin-ion of the world? Would Scrap if Necessary. "My interest in "the neutrality of the United States is not the petty desire to keep our of trouble. I have never looked for it, but I have always found It. I do not want to walk around trouble. If any man wants a scrap, that 1b an interesting scrap and worth while. I am his man I warn him that he is not going to drav, me into any scrap for his advertise ment, but if he is looking for trouble, that Is the trouble of men in general and 1 can help him a little why then I am in for it. Things Greater Than Fighting. "But I am interested In neutrality because there is something so much greater to do than fight, because there is something, there is a distinction waiting for this nation that no nation na-tion has ever yet got That is the distinction of absolute self-control and self -mastery. Whom do you admire ad-mire most among your friends? The irritable man'' The man out of whom you ran get a 'rise' without trin? The man who will fight at the drop of the hat, whether he knows what the hat is dropped for or 1101'' "Don't you admire and don t you have to respect tne self mastered man who watches you with calm eye and comes In only when you have carried the thing so far that you I must be disposed of" That is the I man you respect That is tbc man l whom you know has at the bottom I a much more fundamental and estei in-able in-able courage than the Irritable fighting fight-ing man Reserve American Courage. "Now 1 covet for merica this splendid courage of reserve, moral courage force, and T want to say to you gentlemen simply this "There is news that is no news. There is what is called news from Turtle Bay. that turns out to be false, hood at any rate in what it is said to signify, and which. If you could get the nation to believe it true, might disturb your equilibrium and our self possession We ought not to deal in stuff of that kind. We ought not to permit things of that sort to use up the electrical energy of the wires, because Its energy is malign, its energy Is not of the truth, its energy en-ergy is of mischief. It Is possible to sift the truth 'I have seen some things go out on the wire as true, when there was only one man or one group of men who could have told the originators of the report whether it was true or not. and they wero not asked whether wheth-er it was true or not for fear ft might not be true That sort of report re-port ought not to go out over the wires. World Should Konw Truth. "There is generally, if not always, somebody who knows whether that thing Is so or not and in these days aboe all other days we ought to take particular pains to resort to the one tmall group of men or to the one man. if there be but one. who knows whether those things are true or not. The world ought to know the truth, but the world ought not at this pe riod of unstable equilibrium to be disturbed by rumor ought not to be disturbed by imaginative combinations combina-tions of circumstances, or rather by circumstances stated in combination of which there is nothing in common. For we are holding, not I, but you and gentlemen engaged like you, the balance in your hand. This unstable equilibrium rests upon scales that are Jn your hands For the food of opinion, opin-ion, as 1 began b saying, is the news of tbe day. I have knowu many a man to go off on a tangent on information in-formation that was not reliable. Indeed, In-deed, that describee the majority of men. The world is held stable by the man who ivalts for the next day to find out whether the report was true or not. D Not Accept Rumor. "We cannot afford therefore to let the rumors from irresponsible persors get into the atmosphere of the United States. We are trustees for what I enture to say is the greatest heritage heri-tage that any nation ever had, the ove of justice and righteousness and human liberty. For fundamentally. those are the things to which America Amer-ica is addicted and to which she is I devoted. There are groups of selfish j men In the United States, there are I coteries where sinister things are pur j posed, but the great heart of the great I American people is Just as sound and 1 true as it ever wan. And it is the heart of America. It Is not a heart j made up of sections selected out of 1 other countries. So that what I try to remind myself my-self of every day when I am almost I overcome by perplexities, w hat I try to remember is what the people at j home are thinking about. I try' out I myself In the place of the man who doen not know all the things that I know, and ask myself what he would like the policy of this country' to be Not the talkative man. nor the parti san man, not the man that remembers first that he Is a Republican or a ! Democrat or that his parents were German or English but remembers first that he is an American and the whole detstiuy of modern affairs centered cen-tered upon his being American first of all. If I permitted myself to be drawn Into this present struggle I would be unworthy to represent you If I permitted myself to forget the people who are not partisans I would be unworthy to represent you. I am not saying that I am worthy to cep-leaent cep-leaent you, but I do claim this degree de-gree of worthiness that before very-thing very-thing else I love America." 8e"lou Things In View. "It is, therefore, of very serious things that I think as 1 faco this bodv of men. I do not think of you, however how-ever as members of the Associated Press. I do not think of you as men of different parties or of different racial derivations, or of different religious re-ligious denominations 1 want to talk to vou as to my fellow citizen? of the United States For there are serious things which, as fellow citizens, citi-zens, we ought to consider The. times behind us. gentlemen, have been difficult enough, the times before us are likely to be more difficult because be-cause whatever may be Baid about the present condition of the world's affairs, It is clear that they are drawing draw-ing rapidly to a climax and. at the climax the tosi will come, not only of the nations engaged in the present colossal struggles it will come for them of course, but the test will come to us particularly. "Do you realize that roughly speak Ing, we are the only great nation at present disongaged. I am not speaking, speak-ing, of course, with disparagement of these great nations In Europe which are not parties to the present war but T am thinking of their close neighborhood neigh-borhood to it. I am thinking, however, how-ever, their lives much more than oum. touch the very heart and stuff of the business; whereas we have roll Ing bet v. ecu 11s and these bitter days across (he water three thousand miles of cool and silent ocean Our at-mosphere at-mosphere is not yet charged with those disturbing elements which must be felt and must permeate every na tion of Europe Therefore is it QOl likely thai the nations of the world will some day turn to us for the cooler asseissrueni of the elements engaged f I am not now thinking so preposterous preposter-ous a thought as that we should sit I in Judgment upon them No nation is fit to sit in Judgment upon any other nation, but that we shall some day have to assist in reconstructing the processes of peace Our resonr ces are untouched; we are more and more becoming by the force of circumstances, cir-cumstances, the mediating nation of the world in respect to Its finance We must make up our minds what are the best thing to cin and what are the best ways to do them. Wc must put our mone . our energy our enthusiasm our sympathy Into the things, and we musl hae our judgments judg-ments prepared and our spirits christened chris-tened against the coming of that day So that 1 am not speaking in a selfish spirit when I say that our whole duty, for the present at any rate la sum med up in this motto. 'America first Lei us think of America before we think of Europe in order that America Ameri-ca mav be fit to be Enirope's friend w nen tne nay 01 lesrea inenusnip komes. The test of friendship Is not now sympathy with the one side or the other, but getting ready to help both sides when the struggle Is over. ' The basis of neutrality, gentlemen, is not indifference. It is not self-interest. The basis of neutrality Is isympath for mankind. It Is fair ness It is good will at bottom U Is impartlaiity of spirit and judgment. I wish that all of our fellow citizens could realize that There is In some j quarters a disposition to create dis-.temper dis-.temper in this body politic. Men are even uttering slanders against the United States as if to excite her Men are saying that if we should go to war upon either side there would be a divided America an abominable abom-inable lie of ignorance; America is not aloof, it is vocal just now It is vocal in spots But I for one hae a complete and abiding faith in that great silent body of Americans who are not standing up and shouting and expressing their opinions just now, I but are waiting to find out and support sup-port the duty of America I am Just as sure of their solidity and of their j loyalty and of the'r unanimity if we I act justly, as I am that the citizens of this country have at ever) crisis and turning point Illustrated this great lesson. We are the mediating nation na-tion of the world. T do not mean that we undertake not to mind our business and not to mediate where other people are quarreling I mean the word in a broader sense We are compounded of the nations of the world. We mediate their blood, we mediate their traditions, we mediate medi-ate their sentiments, their tastes, their passions We are ourselves compounded of these things We are, therefore, able to understand all nations; na-tions; we are able to understand them In the compound, not separately as partisans, but unitedly as knowing and comprehending and embodying them all It is In that sense that I mean that America is a mediating nation The opinion of America, the action of America, is read to turn and fre! to turn in any direction |